Multiple Choice Past
by Ysavvryl
Summary: For all the adventures they'd been on together, she never thought to ask her first friend where she'd come from.


**Multiple Choice Past**

What did you do after you saved the world? Yuelia thought it would be nice to just enjoy life of Reveria. Her quiet partner Kiri then pointed out that she needed a Life if she was going to stick around as more than a butterfly. Which was a good point; the best way to continue her mission to keep Reveria safe was to provide a good example. Yuelia decided to take on the Life of a Cook, since she enjoyed cooking and Kiri was always bringing home ingredients from the wild in her duel Hunter and Fisher Lives.

One day when she was taking a break from her current tasks, someone asked her a question that she hadn't really considered. It was a woman who was putting together a newspaper article. "What did your partner do before she took on this epic quest with you?"

"Um, I'm not sure," she said, trying to think if she heard anything about Kiri before meeting her. "We met on the first day of her first Life and she didn't have any dosh."

The Writer scribbled a few notes down. "Huh, so it's a rags to riches story? What about her parents?"

"Sorry, I've not met them either," Yuelia said. It seemed strange. She'd been so nervous over revealing her past as the Lunares daughter of the goddess that she'd not thought to ask who Kiri's parents were. Pam certainly wasn't her mother, although she doted over them both like one.

"That's odd. Have you asked her?"

She shook her head. "No. Plus she's so quiet that it's hard to start a conversation with her." Then something came to mind. "Well, she did say once that she slew a dragon with her bare hands once."

After staring at her for a moment, the Writer said, "R-really? Did you see it? Was it the Napdragon, or another kind of dragon?"

Yuelia shrugged. "I don't know, it happened before we met. Oh, but another time, she said that she used to train dragons by using balls or something. Sometimes when we ran across an interesting monster, she'd say that she'd like one of those balls again."

"How would you train dragons with balls?" the Writer asked, resting her chin on her hand. "Are they vulnerable to juggling?"

"Ha, well I guess entertainment can tame anything," she said, delighted at the idea. "She's also fought demons and vampires, so nothing really scared her."

"Wow, she must have some amazing stories to tell," the Writer said.

She nodded in agreement. "I know! She'll give different answers to the same questions depending on her mood, but then she never gets into telling those stories. Like one time, I meant to ask her what kind of adventure she'd like to go on next. But I accidentally asked, 'What kind of adventure do you prefer?' instead. You know what she told me? She said, 'The ones where I can be a girl.' Isn't that wild?"

"Maybe she's telling tall tales for the fun of it?" she shrugged. "Unless she really does have some secret technique to defeating dragons bare-handed."

"Well she's honest when she does talk," Yuelia said. "Even if telling the truth might make things tougher for the moment, she believes it's better to do so. And I agree with her on that! But she might make up stories when the truth doesn't matter. That can be fun as long as it's obvious."

"That's strange that you don't know anything about her past even as her closest friend," the Writer said.

"I guess it is," she said, feeling embarrassed. "i mean, I was focused on my mission and learning about life here on Reveria. Kiri was there to help me almost every step of the way, so I didn't question her once she told me her wish early on. Her wish was kind of goofy too." Yuelia shook her head. "Oh, but I'm not going to share that. Sorry, but she's my friend. You might ask her yourself, though."

"I'd like to, see if I can get any of those stories out of her. When is she going to be back?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure..." then the bell over the front door chimed. By a wonderful coincidence, it was Kiri, still dressed to explore with clumps of sand on her boots. "Right now it seems!" Yuelia said, glad that she was back. "Welcome back, Kiri!"

She waved as she made sure the door shut, then came into the kitchen. "Got the rainbow honey, and some other ingredients."

"Great, now I can make that new cake recipe!" Yuelia said, hopping in place with excitement. And it was lots of good ingredients, enough for a feast if they felt like it. "Oh, and this Writer here wanted to talk to you for a newspaper article. I was trying to remember where you came from, but I couldn't think of where."

"No one but Pam asked me about that," Kiri said, checking her bag in case she had misplaced another ingredient.

"Then where did you come from before you moved to Castele?" the Writer asked.

"Somewhere else," she said.

"But where somewhere else?" Yuelia asked.

"The last place was an irradiated wasteland," Kiri said as if it wasn't anything special. "I don't want to think about that place."

"What do you mean by 'irradiated'?" the Writer asked in confusion. Yuelia didn't know what she meant either.

"A place where the very landscape is in ruins, you could say," she explained.

"But you told me that you were once in a place where you trained dragons with balls," Yuelia said. "How would dragons live in a ruined place like that?"

"That was another place," Kiri said. "A better place, but out of all the places I've been, I like Reveria best. Fighting monsters can be fun, unless they're the intelligent peaceful sorts. But then being in danger all the time is too stressful. For a while, I tried living as a farmer with a normal family life. That was nice, but I got bored without much to explore. Here, I can fight monsters, explore a beautiful land, and live a normal Life. So I think I'll be staying."

"That's wonderful, I'm glad you're enjoying your Life here," Yuelia said, smiling and feeling like she could sparkle on that for a long time.

The Writer nodded. "Right, it's great to meet someone completely happy with their Life. But what's this I hear about you defeating a dragon with your bare hands?"

At that, she smiled. "That was an old adventure. I could tell you about it, but I'm pushing the envelope as a silent protagonist already. Maybe another day."

"Kiri, come on!" Yuelia said, coming over and tugging at her sleeve. "Don't leave us hanging by clinging to your tropes so tight! I want to hear more about that!"

Unfortunately, Kiri laughed and wouldn't say anything more about it that day. But now that this issue had been pointed out to her, Yuelia had another excuse to pester her into talking more in the future. Their time together wasn't going to end any time soon.


End file.
